Korean War POW's remains return to U.S. 61 years after his death

Lafayette daughter was born while he was at war

LAFAYETTE -- The last wish of Josie Tibbitts' mother was to have her ashes laid in her husband's empty grave. That wish isn't going to come true -- and Tibbitts couldn't be happier for it.

That's because in a week, the remains of her father are coming home at last.

Master Sgt. Elwood Green died in the Korean War at the age of 33. That much has been known. But it was only this year that two pieces of reburied bone -- a tibia and part of the jaw -- were identified as belonging to Green, a prisoner of war who had been held at the site known as "Death Valley" and died in captivity.

Tibbitts, his only child and a Lafayette resident, still can't quite believe it.

"I'm a tough old girl," she said. "But when I got off the phone, I thought someone had thrown me into the freezer. I felt cold. My teeth were chattering up a storm."

"We're all in shock that he was found," she said. "We never thought it would happen, ever."

To war

Green's start wasn't an unusual one for the small town of Norman, Ark. He dropped out of school to work in the family sawmill, just like all the Green boys did. At 18, he joined the Army, still in peacetime in 1937. When World War II came, he saw action in North Africa and Italy; when the war ended, he stayed in uniform and married a few years later.

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And when the Korean War came, he was part of a core of veterans that had to get a new batch of young men ready to fight. Green's sense of responsibility to them ran deep, to the point where he reported back early from a shrapnel wound so he could get back to them. They returned the care with loyalty.

"If he shouted 'You need to jump in a foxhole!' they jumped," Tibbitts said "Their lives depended on it."

An undated photo of U.S. Army Master Sgt. Elwood Green, who died in captivity during the Korean War. His remains recently were identified after being recovered from North Korea and are being sent to his home in Arkansas where the remains will be buried with full military honors.
(Courtesy photo)

All their lives changed when his unit -- Company E, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division -- had to retreat from Pongmyong-ni on Nov. 28, 1950. Cut off by the North Koreans and the Chinese, only three men in the company avoided capture and death.

Green was not one of them.

Death Valley

The prisoner holding point known as "Death Valley," about 30 miles southeast of Pukchin, never was officially acknowledged by North Korea. It still isn't. But plenty of soldiers could tell the tale. About 2,000 American prisoners were held there -- and an estimated 40 percent died there.

Much of it was due to camp conditions. The North Koreans weren't prepared to hold large numbers of POWs and lacked the food or supplies to keep them healthy. Winter conditions, dysentery, cholera and pneumonia finished many.

Green's fate might never have been known except for an American doctor in the camp, Capt. William Shadish. Shadish had managed to keep a fountain pen -- telling the guards it was a gift from his mother that no longer worked -- and used it to keep a list of the soldiers who died, hiding the rolled-up list in the pen.

That's how the family found out that Green had died Feb. 18, 1951. No body came back -- in an effort to conceal the site, the bodies had been removed from Death Valley and reburied or sealed up in nearby mine shafts instead.

Tibbitts was 8 months old. Her mother had been married a little less than two years.

Coming home

About 8,000 American soldiers of the Korean War have been unaccounted for. Recovery of the dead has depended on the mood of the North Korean government and the status of diplomatic relations with the U.S. Recovery teams began to be permitted to enter the country in 1996. That permission was cut off in 2005 and then restored late last year; however, tensions over North Korea's attempted launch of a ballistic missile this year led the U.S. to again suspend recovery operations.

So far, about 87 soldiers have been identified and returned out of 229 sets of remains, according to the Department of Defense's Prisoner of War/Missing Persons Office.

Green's jaw and leg bone were among 69 bones found in 2005 at a secondary burial site. His identification took seven years, aided by dental records, improvements in DNA testing and samples from his surviving relatives.

On Feb. 3, the Army mortuary called Tibbitts. At first, she said, she thought it was a call for her annual Veterans Affairs donation. Then she heard the news.

"Please repeat what you just said," she told the officer. He did. Silence. Then, more softly:

"You mean you found my daddy?"

"I'm a great talker," Tibbitts said as she remembered. "My husband says I'll talk to a rock. But I was speechless."

Last rites

In the weeks since, things have grown as both history and relatives have come out of the woodwork. The Green side of the family alone will have 150 people in Arkansas for the funeral and the final crowd could be far more -- big families tend to be the norm, she said. There's even a cousin who's an Episcopal priest who insisted on performing the service.

Green's remains will arrive in Little Rock, Ark., on Thursday, May 10. On the following Saturday -- the day before Mother's Day -- the military and the Patriot Guard will accompany his remains to Mount Gilead Cemetery near Black Springs for burial with full military honors. A school bell purloined by a long-ago ancestor, the Jeffrey Bell, will be rung three times at the service.

Then Tibbitts can place her mother's ashes in her father's grave. All this time, she said, she'd been a little embarrassed at her procrastination. Now it looks more like foresight.

The father she never knew can be laid to rest. And the daughter he barely saw can say goodbye.

Josie Tibbitts holds a photo of her father, U.S. Army Master Sgt. Elwood Green, who died in captivity during the Korean War. His remains recently were identified after being recovered from North Korea and are being sent to his home in Arkansas where the remains will be buried with full military honors.
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LEWIS GEYER
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